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Re: VB .NET $$$ Up or Stable?

Its unclear whether it will be able to drive up rates.... that depends on
how popular it ends up being. So far, it is very popular with many of the
few people who have been able to play with it and many of the forward
looking people who are looking into it.

As a rule, training has always been a lucrative area for new
technologies.... so I think that with the strength of MS marketing behind
it, training will once again prove to be popular.

Similarly, every publisher has ".NET" strategy plans for books that they
have signed authors for and will continue to do so (I have seen several of
these plans, most of them are actually pretty realistic in terms of what
they want to cover).

It has been stated officially (elsewhere) that FTP conference coverage will
be at least 40% .NET in SF in January. One can only assume it will be moreso
once things are much less than a year from ship.

But note that training, books, and conferences cover the forward looking,
future type thing.... not the present. Consulting covers the present so how
busy it is and how much the rates will be are very dependent on actual
demand to deploy and use the technology, as opposed to actually learning
about it.

Access 2000 is an interesting case to look at for this sort of thing....
book sales and training has been good, but overall the development community
still uses 97 unless they need the new functionality.... those who do need
it are not able to charge significantly more, and they are very much in the
minority compared to those who use 97. This is NOT a 100% example but the
same truth and model existed for other platform/paradigm shifts such as
VB3-->VB4 and Access 2-->Access 95, two other cases where the upgrade was
significant but there were many issues with the new platform that scared
people.

I believe it may shake some people out.... but mostly it will delay them,
more than anything else.

"Mike" <Mike@nospamnow.com> wrote in message news:39dfdd50@news.devx.com...
>
> All,
>
> I was wondering what your thoughts are. Is this new MS architecture going
> to drive up consulting rates?
>
> To me, it has to raise it. It seems like it is going to shake out some
people.
> I have to believe some people will not gear up for the .NET or they go
elsewhere.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Mike

Re: VB .NET $$$ Up or Stable?

"Mike" <Mike@nospamnow.com> wrote in message news:39dfdd50@news.devx.com...
> I was wondering what your thoughts are. Is this new MS architecture going
> to drive up consulting rates?
>
> To me, it has to raise it. It seems like it is going to shake out some
people.
> I have to believe some people will not gear up for the .NET or they go
elsewhere.

I don't think it will have a big impact for several reasons....

First, the .NET framework won't be adopted by a lot of companies at first.
Only those on the "bleeding edge" will move to it at first. I'd expect about
a 1 1/2 to 2 year time frame for this transition after it is released. This
will give people time to train and move into the new technology (nearly a 3
year lead time from today).

Second, there is considerable concern in the market about the stability and
scalability of the NT/2000 platform for running high use/profile web sites.
Several companies I work with are considering or actively working on a
transition to Sun/Oracle based systems (Contrary to the hype, they don't
trust Linux any better than NT). I don't think that .NET will convince them
that there is greater stability/scalability from Microsoft.

Third, which is related to the first one, most companies I've worked with
who are MS shops have web apps running under ASP with VB6 backend
components. They don't want to fix something that ain't broke or redevelop
huge apps just for the **** of it. Therefore, they're unlikely to convert
these apps quickly, particularly to an unproven technology.

Fourth, people who're not doing web apps will see .NET as a bloated hog for
desktop apps and won't move to it at all unless they're forced to do so by a
pointy haired boss (just like very few shops moved to VB4-16).

Fifth, given that it's going to take a year or more before it moves out of
beta, during that time, many companies will be implementing solutions that
use existing, non-beta, technologies (XML and XSLT, for example), and, for
the same reasons I gave in the third reason, they aren't going to all of a
sudden switch to .NET.

Sixth, there is very likely to be an economic downturn going into
early/middle 2001. This will be caused by the high oil prices and a drying
up of venture capital and other investment capital. (Whoever's elected
President or whichever party controls Congress won't make a difference here,
although they can certainly do something to make it worse). This will mean
fewer jobs and those that are still around will have stagnant or lower pay.

I just don't see a big move to .NET technologies that would inspire a small
pool of programmers who would be in line for higher pay.

"Robert Scoble" <rscoble@fawcette.com> wrote in message
news:39e09acb$1@news.devx.com...
> > Second, there is considerable concern in the market about the stability
> and
> > scalability of the NT/2000 platform for running high use/profile web
> sites.
>
> I can understand this concern about NT, but it is unwarranted for Windows
> 2000 IMO. Windows 2000 is VERY stable. Or are you experiencing otherwise?
>
> Robert Scoble
>
> ###
>
>

Re: VB .NET $$$ Up or Stable?

> Robert, don't confuse the personal experiences of those who HAVE upgraded
> with the fears of those who have not.
> Windows 2000 *is* more stable. Its also a much more compelling
international
> platform (so you *know* I would be a fan!). But that does not change the
> minds of the skeptical.

That's true. Just doing my part to point out that I jumped in and the water
is nice.

"Robert Scoble" <rscoble@fawcette.com> wrote in message
news:39e0aa01@news.devx.com...
> > Robert, don't confuse the personal experiences of those who HAVE
upgraded
> > with the fears of those who have not.
> > Windows 2000 *is* more stable. Its also a much more compelling
> international
> > platform (so you *know* I would be a fan!). But that does not change the
> > minds of the skeptical.
>
> That's true. Just doing my part to point out that I jumped in and the
water
> is nice.
>
> Robert Scoble
>
> ###
>
>

Re: VB .NET $$$ Up or Stable?

Mike wrote:
> I was wondering what your thoughts are. Is this new MS architecture going
> to drive up consulting rates?
No, it will drive down rates for those familiar with the Microsoft
development toolset. Reason is, the FUD created by .NET will put
companys off of any new development with the existing or the new
toolsets until it becomes clear which way to go(e.g., J2EE, .NET, stay
with VB6, etc.).
> To me, it has to raise it. It seems like it is going to shake out some people.
It will shake out at least the following people:
1. Early ASP adopters. These developers, who are the best and brightest
users of Microsoft technology, are getting screwed badly by the decision
to not use VBScript in the ASP+ framework: the most commonly-used
Microsoft language on the WWW today is now deprecated. So ASP is now a
legacy platform and VBScript a legacy internet language. Anyway, many of
these developers will never adopt the .NET framework. Their knowledge of
the underlying technologies of the WWW and internet however is
sufficiently strong and their attitude sufficiently daring that they
will easily move to other toolsets. The move will unfortunately weaken
support for the Microsoft IIS platform just when it is most needed by
Microsoft to support the .NET initiatives.

2. VB developers and their managers - this will be a delayed effect,
occurring only once it is realized that ASP+ applications will not scale
properly and therefore that ASP+ is not appropriate for internet
development(although it might be OK for use within an intranet). Anyway,
those VB developers who are not yet familiar with WWW and internet
technologies(the majority of VB developers IMO), will find their
situation quite untenable should management adopt VB.NET. The language
differences (VB6 ->VB.NET) coupled with the learning requirements of the
new environment (WWW et al) will create a *very* steep learning curve.
Only a few will be able to adapt. The shortage of early ASP adopters
will contribute to the situation, since they will no longer be available
to mentor/instruct the group of people.

Because of the steep learning curve and lack of proper
preparation/training, initial .NET projects staffed by such personnel
will fall severely behind schedule; most such projects will be
terminated. IT managers and CIOs will be churned to correct the problem.
It will take IT awhile to regroup, possibly perform a post-mortem(to
determine whether .NET is kept or to move to say, J2EE), and begin a
second phase of retraining before re-launching new development.

Meanwhile, in the non-Microsoft world, progress will be much smoother,
without the Pandora's box of surprises that .NET holds in store for it's
sponsors. The fallout from .NET will sharply increase demand for all
persons familiar with non-Microsoft web technologies.
> I have to believe some people will not gear up for the .NET or they go elsewhere.
Yep.

Re: VB .NET $$$ Up or Stable?

> 1. Early ASP adopters. These developers, who are the best and brightest
> users of Microsoft technology, are getting screwed badly by the decision
> to not use VBScript in the ASP+ framework: the most commonly-used
> Microsoft language on the WWW today is now deprecated.

Mike,

Between this post and your previous post about ASP+, IIS, and VB.NET it is
clear that you are not very familiar to ASP+....The ASP developers that
command the most respect get out of VBScript and into components asap. They
will be very comfortable with ASP+ and ASP+ provides tremendous advantages
to them. But ASP+ just enhances they way you do things. It is a tremendous
productivity gain. Go to most of the ASP Sites (Not ones built on ASP but
the ones devoted to ASP and see what they think of ASP+.)...The early
adopters are all ready building stuff with ASP+...ASP+ is some of the most
stable of the technologies introduced in .NET...
>
> 2. VB developers and their managers - this will be a delayed effect,
> occurring only once it is realized that ASP+ applications will not scale
> properly and therefore that ASP+ is not appropriate for internet
> development(although it might be OK for use within an intranet).

Where do you get your info.. In ASP+ Microsoft has done a tremendous amount
of work addressing Scalability and working on the things that were nice in
ASP but proved to limit scalability (Session objects for instance)...Case in
point Session objects can now be cross machine allowing them to work in a
Server farm environment. A architect can even choose to have them backed by
a SQL Server database. This was not the case with Session objects in ASP.
ASP+ also monitors itself and if it sees a process starting to leak it will
start a new process and start forwarding all new requests to that process
and as soon as all the in process requests complete will shut it down. There
are many more...

In regards to failed projects...Since I have been consulted on many an ASP
project ... I am certain because of the improvements to ASP+ (Session
objects in particular) VB.NET (Threading model in particular) that even tho
some of the same common ASP problems will be done by the uneducated
developers they will be easier to fix...

For instance sites with high volume were built to use Session objects...When
needed more then one server...Architectural changes were needed...in ASP+ a
Session variable can span machines...Developers did bad things like put VB
objects in Session variables (While still bad IMHO) it will not cause the
drastic problems it causes in ASP and VB.

Re: VB .NET $$$ Up or Stable?

"Robert Scoble" <rscoble@fawcette.com> wrote in message
news:39e09acb$1@news.devx.com...
> I can understand this concern about NT, but it is unwarranted for Windows
> 2000 IMO. Windows 2000 is VERY stable. Or are you experiencing otherwise?

Warranted or not, there seems to be a growing opinion out there that
Microsoft products aren't stable enough nor scaleable enough for mission
critical web based applications. I've seen this at about 10 companies where
they're transitioning away from MS to Oracle and Sun. However, I have also
seen a couple of other companies where they like to do things "bleeding
edge" and they're on 2000, no problem.

It could be that MS is not selling into larger corporations as well as
Oracle/Sun are doing. Given the level where this kind of decision is being
made, it's likely that it's one made at the country club between the CIO/CEO
and a Regional Sales Manager.

Re: VB .NET $$$ Up or Stable?

Michael D. Kersey <mdkersey@hal-pc.org> wrote in message
news:39E0EC4D.CE31B15E@hal-pc.org...
> Mike wrote:
> No, it will drive down rates for those familiar with the Microsoft
> development toolset. Reason is, the FUD created by .NET will put
> companys off of any new development with the existing or the new
> toolsets until it becomes clear which way to go(e.g., J2EE, .NET, stay
> with VB6, etc.).
>
> 1. Early ASP adopters. These developers, who are the best and brightest
> users of Microsoft technology, are getting screwed badly by the decision
> to not use VBScript in the ASP+ framework: .

Hi Mike

You must see a totally different part of web development
than I work with. We are looking forward to the prospect of never
again writing VBScript behind pages. We find that developers who
learned only VBScript and not VB are at a great disadvantage. The
rules of script, without real VB experience confuse people badly;
for example, the data types within Variants, and dealing with special
Variant values (Empty, Null, vbNullString, Nothing).

BTW, I read your recent VBPJ opinion. Samuel Johnson's quote
regardling Bolingbroke was "**** is paved with good intentions",
not "The road to". The "road" modification is usually attributed to
Karl Marx.

Re: VB .NET $$$ Up or Stable?

"Bill Storage" <storage@dnai.com> wrote in message
news:39e12d33$1@news.devx.com...
> BTW, I read your recent VBPJ opinion. Samuel Johnson's quote
> regardling Bolingbroke was "**** is paved with good intentions",
> not "The road to". The "road" modification is usually attributed to
> Karl Marx.

I think you mean this for me, not Michael Kersey, right?

Yes, I know this, a peer of mine pointed out this half-forgotten fact but we
argued a bit and decided that this is what people seem to remember most
often (I did not know that the quote was attributed to Karl Marx, though,
just that Johnson's was not the "road" version). :-)

Re: VB .NET $$$ Up or Stable?

Michael (michka) Kaplan <former_mvp@spamfree.trigeminal.nospam.com> wrote in
message
>
> I think you mean this for me, not Michael Kersey, right?
>

Oops. Yes.
> Yes, I know this, a peer of mine pointed out this half-forgotten fact but
we
> argued a bit and decided that this is what people seem to remember most
> often (I did not know that the quote was attributed to Karl Marx, though,
> just that Johnson's was not the "road" version). :-)
>

For the record (for the anal-retentive?) the non-road version also appears
in
George Bernard Shaw, as:
"**** is paved with good intentions, not bad ones. All men mean well." but
the date on that one would be about 1905.

Re: VB .NET $$$ Up or Stable?

S'ok... the most polite way to point out mistakes is to make an error when
you do it. So we can pretend it was intentional. :-)
> For the record (for the anal-retentive?) the non-road version also appears
> in
> George Bernard Shaw, as:
> "**** is paved with good intentions, not bad ones. All men mean well." but
> the date on that one would be about 1905.

Yes, I think this is the one I had forgotten, as opposed to Karl Marx. Of
course I all I remembered was who it wasn't, its not a big deal. :-)